An increasing number of elderly patients are on multiple medications, raising chances of dangerous drug interactions. Often the drugs are prescribed by different specialists who don’t communicate, and hospital doctors add to the list of drugs, sometimes unnecessarily or unsuitably.

Most health policy analysts — including those who are sympathetic to the idea — say moving from the current U.S. public-private hybrid health system to one fully funded by the government in one step is basically impossible. And that’s making a huge assumption that it could get through Congress.

While senators have focused heavily on access, the House and Scott have pushed for health-care changes that include reducing or eliminating some longstanding regulations. They contend that such ideas would create more competition and lower health-care costs.

Disagreements led Senate Appropriations Chairman Tom Lee, R-Brandon, to label the House as “hypocritical” for rejecting federal Medicaid expansion funding while being willing to issue bonds to pay for environmental projects.

Floridians received at least $389 million in March from the federal government to help pay for their health insurance. The subsidies are at the center of a Supreme Court case challenging the health law. The case will be decided this month.

Federal officials fired back in court against Gov. Rick Scott’s contention that the Obama administration has unconstitutionally tried to link expanding Medicaid with the continuation of a key health-care funding program.

Scott’s commission is to make recommendations for a special legislative session on health funding scheduled to begin June 1, but it includes beef, housing, real estate, banking and hospitality experts, but no health care executives.

Dramatic miscalculations and eagerness for showdown over health care derailed Florida lawmakers’ plans in the 2015 legislative session–impulses they must guard against if the special session is to go more smoothly.

Lawyers for the state asked Thursday for a federal judge to immediately bar the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from considering whether the state has expanded Medicaid as the agency weighs a decision on $2.2 billion in funding for hospitals and other health-care providers in Florida.

Florida House and Senate leaders did not put out a list of topics that would be discussed during the special session, leaving room for disagreement over the final “call” that will be issued to lawmakers.

Florida Medicaid’s system delays care and outreach to Medicaid-eligible children is inadequate, the federal lawsuit claims. A judge ruled the lawsuit can continue despite a Supreme Court decision Florida cited to dismiss the case.

Florida Senate leaders are considering legal action to force the House to return to the Capitol to finish out the work week as the slow-motion collapse of the regular legislative session appeared to near its end Wednesday.

The House’s premature departure wasn’t completely unpredictable given the intensifying acrimony between House and Senate Republican leaders during the past few weeks over a $4 billion budget impasse rooted in a philosophical rupture over health care for poor and uninsured Floridians.

The Florida House had made a significant concession to the Senate on hospital funding — but said it would only follow through if the upper chamber dropped insistence on using Medicaid expansion dollars to help lower-income Floridians purchase private insurance.

The federal government confirmed that it gave officials in those states the same message delivered to Texas and Florida about the risk to funding for so-called “uncompensated care pools” — Medicaid money that helps pay the cost of care for the uninsured.

The lawsuit plays into a heated battle over a Senate plan to use $2.8 billion in Medicaid expansion funding to help lower-income Floridians purchase private health insurance. But the House and Scott — who once favored straight-up Medicaid expansion — oppose that idea.

Gov. Rick Scott’s administration, federal officials and House and Senate leaders have waged a public war over health dollars, which President Obama’s administration declared Tuesday are tied to an expansion of Medicaid.

By moving to wealthier areas, hospitals can reduce the percent of uninsured and lower-paying Medicaid patients, but relocations often spark anger from those left behind, who worry about loss of jobs and of access to care, particularly for the poor.

Scott’s opposition means Florida would again forego $47 billion in federal aid over the next 10 years while fewer poor Floridians would have health coverage–and the state’s budget would lose $2.2 billion in current aid that federal officials will no longer provide to the state under its existing medicaid system, which falls short of federal standards.

The new Florida Health Insurance Affordability Exchange Program, or FHIX, would assist Floridians not eligible for Medicaid in purchasing health benefits coverage and gaining access to health services.

The biggest nonexpansion states are Florida and Texas, where expansion would add a total of 2.6 million uninsured residents to the Medicaid rolls. But both the Florida and Texas legislatures are dominated by Republicans, and expansion remains a long shot.

Central Florida cardiologist Asad Qamar, who claims to have 23,000 patients, is the target of two lawsuits accusing him of systematic Medicare fraud, including padding bills and performing unnecessary procedures.

The state Agency for Health Care Administration is making a renewed attempt to scuttle a nearly decade-old lawsuit alleging the state’s Medicaid program has not provided adequate care for low-income children.

Judging by the grant totals of other states, Florida appears to have forfeited at least $100 million and possibly $300 million or more, not even including $51 billion the state is forfeiting by saying no to Medicaid expansion.